Cousins say their legal challenege has come to an end.

[Tomaitch]

After the long winded legal battle they seem to of lost the fight. good or bad ?
Tom

[walkerwek1958]

Definitely bad.......but I think you known that.

Disappointing outcome but not a surprise, I can`t begin to understand the legality of it but despite Cousins believing they had a good case the Swiss have got away with it. Restricting supply of parts is indefensible in my opinion and contrary to whatever the big brands might claim it does nothing to safeguard watch owners, it merely limits their choices and puts up the cost of service and maintenance to whatever level the manufacturers wish to charge.

Over the past 12 months my interest in watches has started to wane, from both a collector's stance and a repairer. The frustration at trying to source parts and being told I can`t have them has been a factor, the situation gets worse every year.

Stuff watches, seriously considering selling the majority of my own collection. The whole scene has changed for the worse over the past few years, new watches have reached ridiculous price levels, the parts and service situation is ludicrous, really struggling to retain any enthusiasm thesedays.

[theancientmariner]

Bad obviously but....

Isn't the obvious solution to start hitting the big brand Swiss manufacturers where it hurts - stop buying them. Of course, we can't as we're addicted to the branding.

We're great in this country at complaining but not doing anything about it. Complain about the media but keeping buying the newspapers/magazines and using social media. Complain about the state of high street shopping but then never use it. Complain about the Swiss taking the **** with watches but then don't support UK brands.

As for the watch components, once upon a time the UK was one of the great engineering countries of the world. If there's demand for the components then it's surely not just the Swiss who can make them? It wasn't so long ago that Bremont were pushing the idea of a UK manufactured movement but all a proportion of UK watch fans did was slate them for the effort so look what's happened there.

[459GMB]

Is the difficulty in watchmakers obtaining parts just limited to Rolex and Swatch group ?